Synopses & Reviews
Off Limits is the first examination of the Rutgers group, artists who came together on the Rutgers University, New Brunswick campus during the 1950s and revolutionized art practices and pedagogy. Based on interviews with artists, critics, and dealers from the period, the book connects the initiation of major trends such as Happenings, Pop Art, and Fluxus to the faculty, students, art curriculum, and events at the university. It is the first book to look not only at the work of individual artists, but to consider how interactions between these artists influenced their groundbreaking work.
Rutgers was clearly the place to be for experimental artists during the late 1950s and early 1960s. Allan Kaprowandrsquo;s first Happening was presented at Rutgers. Roy Lichtensteinandrsquo;s first Pop paintings, George Segalandrsquo;s earliest figurative tableaux, Lucas Samarasandrsquo;s radical exploration of media, and proto-Fluxus events by Robert Watts and George Brecht all took place on and around the campus. The innovative group rejected Abstract Expressionism for art based on the immediate experience of urban and industrial life, creating startling new artforms which remain startling and provocative.
and#160;Led by the theoretical writings and art practice of Kaprow, the group created a New Artandmdash;art beyond the limits of the conventional and predictable, even beyond accepted notions of progressive trends. Lichtenstein recalls in an interview, andldquo;Kaprow showed us that art didnandrsquo;t have to look like art.andrdquo; Along with Lichtenstein, Kaprow, Segal, and Watts taught at Rutgers and challenged one another to take art andldquo;Off Limitsandrdquo; andmdash; beyond the limits of the conventional, the predictable andmdash; even beyond the progressive, as defined by Abstract Expressionist gesturalism. Their art incorporated the gritty environs, the technological, the everyday, making art radical, outrageous, disturbing, and humorous.
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Review
Not since Blam: The Explosion of Pop, Minimalism and Performance 1958and#251;1964 . . . has such an extensive, well illustrated catalogue charted this aesthetically diverse period. It contains interviews with six of the artists in the exhibition. . . . The catalogue also includes a serviceable bibliography, an extensive chronology, and a number of previously unpublished black-and-white and color photographs.
Review
This important book uncovers the beginnings of Pop Art and the avant-garde movement of the sixties, which, it turns out, began at Rutgers University. The personalities and productions by these innovative artists make for energetic and challenging reading. Off Limits is art history with all the excitement and challenge of the innovative art itself.
Review
Rutgers University was the improbable hotbed of Happenings, Fluxus, and Pop Art from 1957 to the early 1960s. Off Limits provides a lively, comprehensive account of avant-garde activities of Allan Kaprow, George Segal, Lucas Samaras, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Watts and their colleagues.
Synopsis
Off Limits is the first examination of the Rutgers group, artists who came together on the Rutgers University, New Brunswick campus during the 1950s and revolutionized art practices and pedagogy. Based on interviews with artists, critics, and dealers from the period, the book connects the initiation of major trends such as Happenings, Pop Art, and Fluxus to the faculty, students, art curriculum, and events at the university. It is the first book to look not only at the work of individual artists, but to consider how interactions between these artists influenced their groundbreaking work.
About the Author
JOAN MARTER is a professor of art history at Rutgers University and the author of several books, including Alexander Calder and Theodore Roszak: The Drawings.
Table of Contents
The forgotten legacy : happenings, pop art and fluxus at Rutgers University / Joan Marter -- Out of control : art and accident in a managerial age / Jackson Lears -- Crashing New York áa la John Cage / Joseph Jacobs -- Living in multiple dimensions : George Brecht and Robert Watts, 1953-1963 / Simon Anderson -- Battle of the yams : contentless form and the recovery of meaning in events and happenings / Kristine Stiles -- Interviews with artists : Allan Kaprow, Geoffrey Hendricks, Roy Lichtenstein, Lucas Samaras, George Segal, Robert Whitman, Letty Lou Eisenhauer -- Project in multiple dimensions / Allan Kaprow, Robert Watts and George Brecht.